Wireless device users may elect to use a secure network, such as a virtual private network or a secure peer to peer network, to transmit communications. The communications over a secure network are encrypted before transmittal over the network. Thus, access providers are unable to detect or prevent certain types of communications from being transmitted.
The inability of a wireless network access provider to monitor and detect the types of communications transmitted from a wireless device may pose multiple problems for the access provider. As one example, a country may require the access provider to prevent its customers from accessing web sites that are considered illegal by the country. However, with secure communications, a customer may circumvent measures taken by the access provider to prevent illegal access. The failure to prevent the illegal access may result in heavy fines or penalties being imposed against the access provider.
As another example, an access provider may offer a variety of different billing models to customers. Access providers may charge customers based on data traffic, based on services used (which can include access of content), or a combination of data traffic and service usage. With each of these models, the access provider may use a variety of different rating schemes. The rating schemes may be per usage, per levels of usage, per subscription, or combination of these schemes. The billing models described above may be undermined when customers use secure networks to transmit communications and the access provider is unable to detect (and therefore bill or prevent) certain types of communications from being transmitted. For instances, access providers may wish to charge users one rate for internet access and a different rate for voice communications. In order to maintain this model, the access providers may want to control or prevent use of Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions. However, the access provider may be unable to detect VoIP communications when customers are using a secure network. As another example, access providers may want to charge users one rate for mobile e-mails and a different rate for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messages. Again, customers may use a secure network to transmit email messages that cannot be detected by the access provider. Thus, the billing models used by access providers may be weakened or destroyed by the use of secure networks.